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July 8, 2012

Filthy Review - Cherry Bomb

Cherry Bomb (2011)

Review by Jude Felton

Shooting its way onto Blu-ray from Well Go USA is the rape/revenge
flick Cherry Bomb, and who am I to turn down another addition to this
sub-genre? I’ll grant you that the cover artwork, which is very pleasing to the
eye, kind of lets you in for what kind of movie you are in for. And I do mean
that in a good way.

Cherry Bomb is a dancer, or stripper if you prefer, who
is working one night at the club she is employed at. Whilst there she ends up
in one of the private rooms to give a show for a group of charming young men,
who are by no means charming. Before you can shout “this is not going to end
very nicely” events do indeed take a turn for the worse for young Cherry.

Now, the nasty bastards that attack and rape Cherry are
very well connected, so when the police arrive at the hospital to question Cherry
they inform her that she must have been mistaken as to what actually happened.
You just know that the police are never going to believe an attractive young
girl against the words of five such reputable young men.

Whilst Cherry is recuperating in hospital her brother
tries to get some money from one of the scumbags, in order to pay for her
hospital bill. That doesn’t go too well, and before long Cherry and her brother
are on a mission of vengeance.

Cherry Bomb is your standard vengeance movie, albeit with
a brother and sister team rather than a solo mission, and it’s one that is done
quite well. Despite the film’s relatively low budget it does keep the action
flowing and the violence is pretty much non-stop. Unlike many movies of this
sub-genre the focus of the film is not on the rape of Cherry, but instead the
revenge aspect. The attack at the club is brief; we don’t need to have visuals
to know what has happened to her, and this allows the movie to move forward
into the good old fashioned revenge.

Also, unlike the recent I Spit on Your Grave remake,
Cherry does not disappear off screen for an inordinately long period of time.
This is her story, and as such is on screen for the majority of the movie.

A hit man does pop up later on to further increase the
gunplay and to add another aspect to the story. You can read that as another
excuse to add in even more violence! It’s all fairly entertaining stuff for the
most part. There were times when I had to suspend my disbelief a little;
apparently you can waltz around with guns, killing folk and the only cop within
a twenty mile radius that gives a shit is the investigating detective who
questioned Cherry.

Cherry Bomb is, after all, an action-orientated movie and director Kyle Day has delivered the goods. It’s
not trying to offer any deep message, it’s B-movie mayhem with a B-movie cast.
Granted, Julin Jean is very attractive, and she adds just enough grit to her
role to make it believable, even when the story isn’t.

Overall, Cherry Bomb is a fast-paced movie that doesn’t
give you a chance to get bored. It has its flaws and is clichéd to high hell,
but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy it. Well worth a blast if rape/revenge,
with the emphasis on revenge, is your cup of tea.

Cherry Bomb is released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 10th by Well Go USA.